Wanted priest doesn’t know if he’ll return to Canada on child sex charges

A priest wanted on child sex-abuse charges in the North says he doesn’t know if he’ll return from France to face them.

Reached at his home in the Avignon region, Joannes (yoh-HAH’-ness) Rivoire (rih-VWAR’) seemed aware of a Canadian warrant for his arrest that was issued in 1998.

Three-sex-related charges against him date from his work in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, between 1968 and 1970.

Rivoire says he’s not willing to discuss the warrant.

Asked if he would return to Canada, he said that he might, but added that he is old and sick.

He gave his age as “something like” 83.

Former Oblate priest Eric Dejaeger is currently on trial in Iqaluit on 69 charges of child sexual abuse alleged to have occurred between 1978 and 1982.

Dejaeger was facing six of those counts in 1995 before he fled to his homeland of Belgium, where he lived for nearly 18 years before he was returned to Canada on immigration violations.